I Will Be the Greater Fool

Okay, I lost it the other day when the Speaker of the House declared that women’s restrooms would be off limits to Sarah McBride, Delaware’s newly elected member of Congress. Sarah has been Sarah as long as I have been Paula. I imagine when she’s out in public her experience is pretty much the same as mine – everyone treats her as a woman. Most of her hate mail probably comes via the Internet or texts and voicemails, as does mine. Being prohibited from using a women’s restroom, or even being stared at in a women’s restroom, is not a part of my experience, and probably not a part of hers either. She has responded with intelligence and grace to this ridiculous affront. Inside, she has to be bitterly disappointed.

My entitlement and self-confidence know no bounds. It rarely occurs to me that a worst-case scenario could come true. Only this week did I realize it is a distinct possibility that a national bathroom bill will be passed and signed into law. Even then I know I need not worry when I fly through ORD, LAX, LGA, or even CLT. But I fly through DFW a lot and it is already a surly and unwelcoming airport for everyone. For me, flying through Texas could get a lot worse.

But here’s the thing. What good does it do me to get caught up in the net of attention-seeking transphobia. Since the election the trolls have come out in force, again. I have been attacked from within the fundamentalist Christian world and from without. It is going to be an ugly four years.

But having had a few days to let this truth settle in, I am beginning to put it in perspective. I realize just how tiny my concerns are compared to what my daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and three of my five granddaughters face on an ongoing basis.

I’m not up against what Palestinians are facing in Gaza, or even what Jewish students are facing on elite university campuses where anti-Jewish sentiment is frighteningly real. None of my grandparents were exterminated in concentration camps. I have a friend whose grandmother was the only member of her family to survive Nazi Germany. My friend is planning to move back Spain and has every reason to do so. Generational trauma is real.

As for me, I will ignore the haters because I can. I’ve been busy unfriending folks from social media and removing my phone number from all of my online sites, again. As an elected official I can have law enforcement come by my home at the beginning of every shift, though I don’t feel that is necessary, at least not for now. And I can ignore the bathroom laws, as I have been doing where they have existed.

I will not play into their hand. I will live with dignity, treat my enemies with compassion, and play the role of the greater fool. In economic theory, the lesser fool is the person who optimistically buys a stock at a high price believing it can be sold to a greater fool at an even higher price.

I believe most people might believe the price of attaining civility, equity, and tolerance are too high right now, not worth buying into. The downside is too great.  There is too much to lose.

But I believe civility, equity, and decency can become the currency of our nation, the currency that found expression in the farewell address of George Washington, the Gettysburg address of Abraham Lincoln, the inaugural speech of John F. Kennedy, and the traditional liberalism that says there is more that unites us as than separates us.

I will continue to believe the ultimate building blocks of the universe are predicated on love, and that against all appearances, love is what makes the world go round. If that makes me the greater fool, it is a role I shall be honored to play.

And so it goes.